Edgework

A few weeks ago I had an epiphany of sorts as I was preparing Christmas cards to be given to our church friends. I was working my way through our church directory addressing cards and adding a personal comment or two before signing my name. Suddenly I looked up and exclaimed to Ruth that every last person we were sending a Christmas card was wrestling with one type of brokenness or another. I think I knew this theoretically, but now it had hit me in the gut with full force. I rechecked the list of names in the directory, looking for at least one or two exception, but found none. The directory might as well have been named “The 2012 Directory of Brokenness.”

Wounds from childhood sexual abuse that have never healed completely. Sons and daughters wandering far away from God and the church, leaving a lot of questions for troubled parents. Arthritis bad enough to call for knee and hip replacements. Digestive tract ailments that evade easy treatment. Surgery dates coming quickly and recovery taking lots of time. Anxiety about why it seems impossible to find a life-mate. Sensitive allergies restricting desired activities. Handicapped older children with parents seeking long-term living arrangements for them. Unexplained, relentless headaches burdening both young and old. A job paying too little to support a growing family.

Unexplained panic attacks appearing out of nowhere. Loneliness stalking those who have lost a life partner. A son in prison with little chance of release any time soon. Separation from a spouse because of dementia. Uncertainty related to finding one’s life calling. The effects of chemo-therapy still hanging around after two decades of being cancer free. A notice of terminal cancer that is dormant for the present but something to keep an eye on.

Some marriages teetering on the rocks. Sibling rivalry that didn’t end in childhood. Recent retirement creating an identity crisis. Addiction to tobacco plus a lot more. Loss of vision with no light at the end of the tunnel. A divorce that came as a surprise and still leaves unhealed wounds.

And I haven’t even mentioned the brokenness lurking among the youth. We are fortunate to have a youth pastor who provides settings in which young people can share their intimate struggles. How to deal with their sexuality? How to find God who always seems far away? How to live in a home where parents constantly quarrel? How to forgive those who have hurt them? How to admit their own failures? How to fit in with the group? How to find faith in a context calling for divided loyalties? And the list just goes on, and on and on…

Welcome to our church!

One is tempted to ask where things went wrong. Should we not have overcome such brokenness long ago? Does God not meet our every need?  I was raised in a context which I now call “triumphalism” in which one of the main activities on our agenda was to convince one another how well we were “living above the world.” It just came with the fundamentalist spirit that was ever-present. There seemed to be an unspoken understanding that 85 to 95 percent of persons in the church had things more or less together and were walking on the victory road where life was unfolding according to divine providence. Frequent testimony times helped to establish this pervasive optimism. Yes, perhaps there were 10 to 15 percent of those who attended who could not hide their struggles. But the hope was that with enough positive wrangling that percentage could be reduced considerably.

As a youngster, I remember thinking at times that there was something wrong with this overly positive image that was fostered in the church. And when I listened to my parents talk at home about people in the church community, I realized things were not as rosy as they appeared to be on the surface at church.

So I am forced to ask which reality I would rather live in – a church of broken people or a church where most everyone has it all together. That is not a hard decision to make. The visibly broken community of faith wins, hands down! Strangely enough, in spite of the brokenness all around, there is also a deep sense of community. Could it be that it is brokenness that opens the possibility for real community to happen? Is true community even possible where there is little or no transparency?

Our broken community mingles and worships on any given Sunday morning with a good degree of enthusiasm, and listens intently to practical sermons about faith and life. The youth and young adults occupy the center- front block of benches – fully present. Before and after the service we ask one another how we are doing and mostly we are not content to get evasive responses. And in the process we come to experience the presence of a sense of peace and joy. We are a broken people of God discovering abundant life in the Kingdom of God.

This past year our pastor has adopted an Anglican tradition of offering a “Prayer of the People” during the service. Aside from the broader scope of such a prayer than the usual listing of people on the sick list, this prayer quietly and simply recognizes that we are all needy; that all have areas of brokenness that need a touch of grace, not judgment. I have told our pastor on a number of occasions that for me this has become one of the highlights of our worship service. After all, we are a broken people coming together in the presence of a merciful God who always stands ready to encourage and comfort the needy.

Of course some of us experience times when things appear to be going in our favor. But, from what I observe, it is our common and varied brokenness that forms the bedrock on which a true faith community can be built.